Michael
Madhusudan Dutta (1824-1873), the
19th century Bengali poet and playwright, was born on 25 January 1824 in
a landed family in the village of Sagardari in Jessore district, Bengal
(now in Bangladesh). He was the only son of a well-to-do Kayastha
Family. His father, Rajnarayan Dutta, was a law practitioner in Kolkata.
Madhusudan in his early years, was taught at home by his mother, Jahnabi
Devi, and later he joined Sagardari Primary School. At the age of 7 he
went to Khidirpur School, Kolkata. In 1843 he got admitted to Kolkata's
famous Hindu College. Here, amongst other subjects, he also studied
Bengali, Sanskrit and Persian.

Madhusudan began
writing while at Hindu College. He drew
everyone's attention at a college function when
he recited a self-composed poem. He won several
scholarships in college exams
as well as a gold medal for an essay on women's
education. While a student at Hindu College,
Madhusudan's poems in Bengali and English were
published in Jnananvesan, Bengal Spectator,
Literary Gleamer, Calcutta Library Gazette,
Literary Blossom and Comet. Lord Byron was
Madhusudan's inspiration.

Michael's
exceptionally colourful personality and his
unconventional, dramatic and in many ways tragic
life have added to the magnetism and glamour of
his name. Generous in friendship, romantic and
passionate by temperament, he was also fond of
the good life; he was financially irresponsible,
and an incorrigible spendthrift. He experimented
not only in the field of writing, but also in
his personal life.

On 9 February
1843, Madhusudan ran away from home and
converted to Christianity, to escape a marriage
his father had arranged and also to satiate his
fascination with everything English and Western.
He took the name 'Michael' upon his conversion
and wrote a hymn to be recited on the day of his
Baptism. However, on becoming a Christian,
Madhusudan had to leave Hindu College as
Christians were not allowed to study there
during that time. In 1844,
he got admitted to Bishop's College, Shinpur and
remained there until 1847. There, he also
studied Greek and Latin.

Madhusudan's
conversion to Christianity estranged him from
his family, and his father stopped sending him
money. In 1848, Michael left for Madras where he
started teaching, first at Madras Male Orphan
Asylum School (1848-1852) and then at Madras
University High School (1852-1856). Besides
teaching, Madhusudan was also involved with a
number of newspapers and journals. He edited the
Eurasian (later known as the Eastern Guardian),
the Madras Circulator and General Chronicle and
the Hindu Chronicle.
He also worked as Assistant Editor of the Madras
Spectator (1848-1856).

While in Madras,
Madhusudan married Rebecca Mactavys Thompson and
had a family by her. Meanwhile, his mother died
and then his father. After his father's death,
Madhusudan abandoned Rebecca and his first
family due to a failed marriage and returned to Kolkata in February 1856 to live with a
Frenchwoman named Henrietta White and had a
second family by her. She and Michael did not
seem to have been formally married, presumably
because Rebecca had never granted him divorce.
There is no record either of their marriage or
of Michael obtaining a divorce from Rebecca.

In Kolkata,
Michael first worked as a clerk at the police
court and then as interpreter. He also started
contributing to different journals. His friends
urged him to write in Bengali.

Madhusudan
realized the paucity of good writing in Bengali
as well as his own ability to fill this vacuum.
While translating Ramnarayan Tarkaratna's play
Ratnavali (1858) into English, he felt the
absence of good plays in Bengali. He became
associated with the Belgachhiya Theatre in
Kolkata patronized by the Rajas of Paikpara. In
1858 he wrote the western-style play Sharmistha
based on the Mahabharata story of Devayani and
Yayati. This was the first original play in
Bengali, making Madhusudan the first Bengali
playwright.

By dint of his
genius, he removed the stagnation in Bengali
literature both in style and content. He was the
first to use blank verse in 1860 in the play
Padmavati based on a Greek myth. This use of
blank verse freed Bengalipoetry from the
limitations of rhymed verse. This success
prompted Madhusudan to write his first Bengali
poem, Tilottama-Sambhava in blank verse in that
very same year. It is based on the Puranic story
of the war waged on the Gods by the demon
brothers Sunda and Upasunda. This poem was
written entirely in blank verse, and so were the
two later poems Meghnad-Badh Kavya (Ballad of
Meghnad's Demise in Ramayana) in 1861 and
Virangana. The later poems silenced the critics
and detractors, and permanently established the
vogue of blank verse literature.
Madhusudan's epic poem: Meghnad-Badh Kavya is
considered his all-time masterpiece till today.
Written in blank verse, this epic was based on
the Ramayana but inspired by Milton's Paradise
Lost. Madhusudan transformed the villainous
Ravana into a Hero. This grand heroic-tragic
epic was written in nine cantos which is quite
unique in the history of Bengali Poetry.
Meghnad-Badh Kavya was Bengali literature's
first original epic and gave Madhusudan the
status of an Epic Poet.

The years 1861-62
were Madhusudan's most fruitful period. These
were the years of publication of Meghnad-Badh,
Krishna-Kumari, Vrajangana, and Virangana-Kavya
(1862). Virangana was modeled on Ovid's heroic
epistles, and contains some of Madhusudan's
finest blank verses. Technically it is his best
work. Almost all his poems, except
Brajangana-Kavya (1861) were written in the
blank verse pattern.

Madhusudan worked
briefly as Editor of the Hindu Patriot before
leaving for England on 9 June 1862 to study Law.
In 1863 he went to Versailles in France, staying
there for about two years. It was in France that
Madhusudan overcame the longing for England that
had inspired his early works and realized the
importance of his motherland and mother tongue -
Bengali.

Much of his time
abroad, especially in Versailles, was spent in
abject poverty, as the money from his late
father's estate on which he was relying did not
come regularly. His Indian friends who had
inspired him to cross the ocean had by now
managed to forget the beggar Madhusudan
altogether. He fell hopelessly into debts and
appealed for help to the great personality, the
scholar, social reformer, and activist
Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar (this kind soul was
known to all as Dayar Sagar - the ocean of
kindness, for his immense generosity).

Vidyasagar labored
to ensure that sums owed to Michael from his
property at home were remitted to him and sent
him a large sum of money to France. However, as Madhusudan was still not in a position to clear
off all his debts, he was very often threatened
by his creditors with the eventuality of
prison-arrests. He was deeply over head and ears
in debt.

Madhusudan
returned to England from Versailles in 1865. In
1866 he became a Barrister. He returned to
Kolkata on 5 January 1867 and started practicing
Law. But his practice did not pick up and in
June 1870, he was obliged to give up his legal
career to work as a translator at the High Court
on a monthly salary of Rs 1000.

However, his habit
of reckless spending ran up debts again. Despite
all ups and downs, Madhusudan kept on writing.
In 1871 he wrote Hectarbadh after Homer's Iliad.
His last composition was Mayakanan (1873).

Madhusudan's last
days were painful, because of debts, illness and
lack of treatment. He had no place of his own
and had to take shelter in the library of the
Zamindars of UttarPara, Hooghly, W.B.

His extravagant
life-style, fickleness in money matters, and
reckless drinking to drown problems conspired to
wreck his health and happiness, and likewise the
health and happiness of his second partner
Henrietta, who had also succumbed to alcoholism
during her days of poverty in Versailles.

On 29 June 1873,
three days after the death of Henrietta, the
greatest poet of the Bengal renaissance died in
Calcutta General Hospital in a miserable
condition at the age of only 49 years. Thus, he
and his partner both died prematurely, within 3
days of each other's demise, leaving behind
orphaned children.

Even now after
more than 100 years to his death, Michael
Madhusudan Dutta is revered as the pioneer of
the new 19th century awakening of Bengal. With
his unusual talent, he brought about
revolutionary changes in Bengali language and
literature. Drawing profusely on Sanskrit themes
for his poems and borrowing from western
literature, he set a completely new trend in
Bengali literature.
He was a man of real, though somewhat erratic,
genius, and a courageous innovator of forms and
types which altered the whole course of Bengali
literature and added new dimensions to it. To
his adventurous spirit, Bengali Literature owes
its first blank verse and the sonnet , its first
modern comedy and tragedy, and its first epic.

The life-style and
poetic virtues of Michael Madhusudan Dutta were
not only unconventional but awe inspiring. He
would be always highly regarded and remain
immortal in the history of Bengali literature as
the founder of Amitrakshar Chhanda or blank
verse (rhyme less verse) and as its best ever
exponent.

Madhusudan used to collect themes for his poetry
from the Sanskrit Puranas, ancient Hindu epics
and also English and French literature. He also
wrote poems about the sorrows and hurts of love
spoken by women. He is considered as the Father
of Bengali Sonnet. He was also a wonderful
linguist. Besides Bengali, Sanskrit and Tamil,
he studied Greek, Latin, Italian and French and
could read and write the last two languages with
perfect grace and ease.

Madhusudan's life was a stupendous boon and also
an enormous sorrow. Loss of self-control was
mainly responsible for his life's financial and
emotional sorrows and yet it was a God-gifted
boon for his over-flowing poetic originality.
The all-inviting epitaph on his grave came from
the poet himself:

Stop a while,
traveler!
Should Mother Bengal claim thee for her son.
As a child takes repose on his mother's elysian lap,
Even so here in the Long Home,
On the bosom of the earth,
Enjoys the sweet eternal sleep
Poet Madhusudan of the Duttas. '